I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.
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Post-Colonial Marines: The Ludological Problem of Aliens - And How It Was Solved

Visceral in the sense of strongly worded, rather than relating to the bits of viscera which fly out under the pressure of an alien’s claws. Generally, the critical response has been an enthusiastic demonstration of the principle that bad reviews are a lot more fun to write than good reviews, leading to some tour de force eviscerations. That’s evisceration in the sense of a savage review, not what happens when… oh, you get the drift.

The problem of Aliens

Plenty of technical reasons have been given for the review scores the game is getting, but it seems to me that there is a fundamental issue at the heart of the project. Despite its apparent aesthetic compatibility, Aliens is not a world which lends itself to a modern big-name FPS treatment.

The modern big-name FPS is primarily about creating a fairly linear path through a narrative, and then using that drop in flexibility to add polish and spectacle – layer upon layer of polish and spectacle. That often leads to the description of franchises like Call of Duty as “cinematic” – with positive and negative implications. However, it is actually more accurately “action movie-esque” – informed and inspired by a particular kind of cinema, in which a hero protagonist fights his (or her, but usually his) way through waves of enemies to reach a final confrontation with the antagonist. The odds against the hero escalate as he reaches his goal, and the force of his responses escalates in turn.

There is what my colleague Erik Kain identifies as a ludonarrative dissonance at times in the presentation of these games: the narrative may tell you that your character is on the back foot (often as a result of a crash-landed spaceship or drop-pod, which also explains why, despite being part of a mass military force, your space marine often finds himself acting alone or with a small group of companions), but the gameplay is still resolutely progressive: your character kills his way from objective to objective.

This is the rough model for a number of action films – in particular, it’s a style that works very well with an Arnold Schwarzenegger type in the central role. The traditional FPS is actually a lot like The Terminator, but from the terminator’s perspective – a single, incredibly durable hero cutting through numerous but weak enemies in pursuit of a single significant kill.

Aliens, also a James Cameron film, is a great action movie. But it isn’t that great action movie. The heroes do not use their superior skills and durability to kill their way through waves of aliens. The heroes die, and run, and die.

The ends of empire

James Cameron has listed among the inspirations for Aliens the Vietnam war – in which an overconfident, technologically superior force is caught unawares by assymetric warfare.

Leaving aside the disquieting implications there, this is somewhat true, but also somewhat limited. The marines are not being sent in to prevent the expansion of an ideology, except in a very abstract sense. An outpost of Weyland-Yutani’s holdings has stopped reporting and the marines are explicitly being sent in to resolve this administrative and financial issue – although we discover that the corporation has a darker purpose, as sci-fi corporations always do.

The marines are explicitly identified as colonial - and it is also made clear that they are in an uncomfortable relationship with the Weyland-Yutani corporation which, not unlike the East India Company, protects and mercantilizes the colonies, and seeks to profit from the raw materials they produce – including perfectly-constructed biological weapons. The US Colonial Marine corps are a nation-state’s military serving the interests of a corporation.

A stand-up fight: Aliens: Colonial Marines

These marines are well-equipped, and they are confident – the reference to “another bug hunt” suggests that they have exterminated infestations before. However, the aliens they encounter on Hadley’s Hope rapidly and totally subvert their expectations. In the first encounter their command structure is dismantled, cadre discipline breaks down completely and most of their advanced technology is lost or shown to be inadequate. Subsequent encounters whittle down their numbers further, while never doing more than lightly trimming the alien horde. Rather than advancing towards a goal, they are falling back towards a retreat, and are frustrated at every turn, infiltrated at every redoubt.

Meanwhile, the embodiments of their military virtues (Master Sergeant Apone and Lieutenant Gorman) and the corporate interests which built the colony (Carter Burke) are shown to be unprepared, inadequate or just downright evil. Gorman redeems himself after his catastrophic but inevitable failure first by shedding his unearned authority (“I just want to help”), and then by defying the rules of engagement by becoming a suicide bomber. By doing that, he wins the grudging (and very brief) respect of the hard-nosed Vasquez – the marine who has survived the longest through an unswerving commitment to being totally kick-ass.

If you want to keep surviving, you need to get out from under your colonial marine expectations very quickly. Corporal Hicks makes it to the finishing post primarily because he understands that standard-issue badassery is not an appropriate response to the situation, and calmly adjusts his parameters, falling in line with Ripley. Newt and Bishop survive because they are pacifists – she is wily, he is calm, but neither fights. And Ripley survives because she’s Ripley - and because she is consistently suspicious of both the military and the corporate/colonial authorities. The final battle involves blue-collar technology – technology used to build rather than destroy – going up against the Alien Queen to protect the helpless Newt, Hicks and Bishop.

See the problem?

If you are trying to make a modern FPS set in the world of Aliens, this is going to cause immediate problems – and if it’s squad-based, to paraphrase Morrissey, that makes it even worse. Modern FPSes are, somewhat predictably, based around the gun – the focus of the player’s interaction with the world. You, the player, see the world through crosshairs. When you are deprived of a weapon, as in one section of Aliens: Colonial Marines, at the beginning of Half-Life 2 and during a harrowing in-game sequence in Quake 4, it is for a specific purpose – to create a temporary sense of helplessness.

This is not exactly rocket surgery. But it is a problem, because one thing we realise pretty early on in Aliens the movie is that the shiniest technology is not very much use against an enemy that emerges from the walls, or pulls you down through the floor.

So, to make that work the Aliens have to be nerfed a little. To make it worth the player’s while to shoot, they have to become easier targets, and less numerous. To make melee work they have to be less acidic, and also less deadly at close quarters, where no marine stood against them unscathed. At a certain point, the sense of dread – the sense that nothing you have been equipped or trained to do works – is going to be diluted.

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I think one of the main problems is just one of attitude – “How can we make it more like Halo/Call of Duty?” Which of course misses the point of these games – they aren’t designed around being like others, they’re designed to stand out and be unique. The end result being that they shy away from things like you say – a tactical squad based shooter where you have perma-death and have no apex weapon.

This is definitely a compelling treatment on the failures of the A:CM, and an accurate portrayal of the challenges of bringing Aliens from the movie screens into gameplay. However, as you alluded to in the Electric Dreams game, these challenges are not insurmountable. Furthermore, so many modern gaming tools and techniques have been borrowed from the Aliens franchise… the hurdles of bringing the game to life have a good amount of precedence.

The number of survival-horror games has shown that gamers are tolerant of hard games, as long as they provide the appropriate learning curve and environment/setting that justifies that difficulty. Tools like making large parts of the environment dark, including a flashlight with a limited battery and limited useful distance… these would force players to rely more on the motion sensor and add that element of dread, and they’ve been used effectively in other modern survival-horror games.

Furthermore, things like the SmartGun — they lend themselves to a great opportunity where develops can mix up pacing — from the slow, dreadful areas where players methodically navigate their way in the dark, armed with motion trackers, to the more action-oriented, culterf*** firefights where it’s more about surviving an onslaught than trying to determine where a threat is coming from.

All in all, A:CM wasn’t terrible because of the challenges of adapting the movie to the game. If anything, the challenges could have resulted in an extremely compelling game experience. Frankly, it’s evident that the mediocre gameplay was the result of a creative team that never had the time to carefully think about the game design elements (or implement them, who knows), and had to cobble together something that would barely pass muster by a particular deadline.

I’m not sure what exactly you are trying to say, but Aliens vs. Predator 1&2 exist, and they were good games. Aliens vs. Predator (2010), while not brilliant or all that good was still acceptable at what it was trying to do. They’d just have to recreate the first two games and they’d have a great experience.

That said, a game where you play a civillian amongst a group of other civillians that are being attacked by a few lone aliens and there’s a fight for survival going on while your comrades die around you left and right might fit better to the “Aliens” franchise. Possibly with a few, but even moreso memorable and meaningful fights where you stand your ground while they are attacking you and your group. There could even be both Resident Evil-esque and Left4Dead-alike scenes in there that could both be based on the concept of survival.

As a side note, gameplay footage of the cancelled Obsidian Aliens: Crucible RPG (in favor of Aliens: Colonial Marines) was released recently.

The Obsidian RPG could have been interesting – there are also some early games which take radically different approaches, like the 8-bit Alien game, which is effectively a strategy game. But it’s hard to tell what would have marked Crucible out from the available evidence. By the same token, a golden-age-of-BioWare Aliens game might have been interesting.

Your civilians-versus-not-many aliens idea likewise has potential. It’s not something that would probably happen under a license, but I’ve always been tempted by the idea of a Pandemic/X-Com idea set during the infestation of Earth in the original Dark Horse “Aliens” comic book – where you fight an almost impossible battle to save Earth from the Aliens, research technologies to assist the battle, maybe have to destroy whole cities if they become hopelessly infested, decide whether to try to reclaim Earth or evacuate as many people as possible… Or indeed a game somewhat like what Brian Mitsoda’s Dead State is shaping up to be, perhaps, where you are trying to survive in a post-infestation world.

Why do I keep reading these articles that completely expunge from existence AvP2? Arguably the very best game in the entire franchise it achieves this, granted the protagonist survives, but few others do, they enter with a very significant(MUCH more than the film) force and he escapes with a sliver of their original forces, completely overwhelmed by what they encountered, it is a driving element of the Marine campaign(the biggest of the three) that in the end defines it exactly as you suggest, just as in the film.

Nevermind the character development, the intrigue, the well paced horror and well scripted reveals, or that using the smartgun in close quarters gets you an instant death by acid, it is the best execution out there as far as the film. I keep having to make this comment in so many places, did no one play AvP2? Did everyone forget it exists? I was under the impression it was something of a classic, if under appreciated, game worthy of remembering.

Sure – and there’s the original, Rebellion Software AvP also, which is by no means terrible., either – and was of course re-released not that long ago.

However, that’s not an Aliens game: it’s an Alien versus Predator game. I was focusing on the specific challenges of creating a game based on the specific heritage of the film Aliens. Not only are there different license and context things going on there, but there’s a kind of spiritual difference.

At the risk of offending a legion of fans… the Alien is a smart concept, which can be put to non-smart uses, whereas the Predator is a non-smart concept which can be used smartly. This isn’t a value judgment – “Commando” is a non-smart movie, but it is also totally awesome. It’s just about flavor.

It’s actually fairly easy to make a Predator video game, at least conceptually, as long as you are OK with the perspective character being a Predator – see my Terminator comment. The problem there is something else: that you have to either accept that you are playing a quote-unquote bad guy, or create some sort of motivation for the Predator to become in some way heroic (usually because they have been imprisoned by a greater evil i.e Weyland-Yutani) we also see the idea that the Predator recognises the fighting spirit of a single human and teams up with them against the Aliens, as we see in the original Dark Horse Aliens versus Predator comic book and the Paul WS Anderson movie. Which dilutes the character, in the same way that making it possible to survive 5 straight hours of firefights with the Aliens (when Apone’s squad went down in about 5 minutes) is dilutive of the Alien.

No it wasn’t terrible, though I feel Monolith did a significantly better job in spite of AvP2′s failings, AvP2 is the one I’d like to see re-released personally. There’s no spiritual difference in the specific campaign, but as an entire game, and certainly the Alien campaign was the best “Alien” experience ever summoned out of this medium, so it succeeded in both, where the Predator is a hunter, not a commando, and ended up being the latter in this game which was not terribly satisfying. The moments of tension, of stalking prey, of moving through the environment like an alien leopard, those captured the Predator experience, the others amounted to spamming weaponry, superb climax excluded.

I refer to my disagreeing over what the Predator experience should be defined as, but the Predator in my view should never be bad or good, he should be appropriately alien in most circumstances and the experience should attempt to place you in that experience rather than make it somehow relatable to the player. The moments where you are forced into some form of cooperation are fine when done right, the groan-worthy AvP film is very poorly done, but the source comic is certainly a believable transition, much like Avatar or its source Dances with Wolves, that once proven you are of them, now alien, rather than being an ally of convenience as in the film.

I agree about diluting the character, but only in the film, and I disagree about diluting the Aliens in the game because the circumstance is quite different. The initial squad was small and poorly prepared, unleashed into a dilapidated complex with little intel, the game Marines are vastly better prepared, are in ways backed up by the Corporate forces also fighting the aliens, in a purpose-built facility for researching them. That they survived five hours and ended up having to flee the planet with almost all of their forces annihilated does not dilute, but rather reinforces, the nature of the xenomorph threat as you define it.

Your observations are keen and very well articulated however if i may you did confess that you have not spent that much time with the game. I have, trust me. And maybe that’s the heart of the problem. No one has given the game enough of their time. Hear me out. People blew through it, noticed all the problems and sent it immediately to the cleaners. Now, I finished the campaign by myself on the hardest difficultly within two days. I found myself as did many others, angry. I had many “wha??” moments. Why are the textures delayed? Why am I blowing through aliens like they’re paper?! What’s with this story??? Where’s the damn pullup bar Vasquez was using by her locker when she was talking to Ferro?!! I thought this was suppose to be authentic, damn it!!! Why the hell were my expectations not met?!! But I eventually cooled off. Feeling cheated, a day went by and I played the campaign again with my brother. I had a different experience than I did by myself. Yes, it still could have been more challenging but it WAS a different experience. So I went back and tried the campaign for the 3rd time with random online marines. Again, I had a different experience and this time friendly fire is what surprised me. It seems like people might actually have to respect their fellow players and watch where they’re shooting. Hm, I like that. And coincidently, I noticed people being respectful to their fellow marines. They weren’t blowing my head off in the elevator because there was nothing else to do. It was as if they were actually playing their marine role. People seemed to be making the best of it. And then it accured to me. This is a movie of sorts, right? Our favorite movies are supposed to be watched over and over whenever you get that itch. Each time picking up a little extra nugget you may have missed before. I found myself strangely not minding the characters as much even though you now know their fates. Just like you did with Hudson. The spoken dialogue which seemed cheesey at first now seemed almost fitting. Suddenly, I’m now interested in the story and where is it going next? That’s right! The campaign isn’t over yet… What just happened? I’m not angry anymore. It was then clear to me that this was actually the best representation of the Aliens universe I had ever really been immersed in as a game. Yes, all the flaws are still there but I found myself looking past them. But campaign aside, the Verses is what really brought me back. At first, the alien controls frustrated me to the point of giving up. Some of the wall climbing still does but more importantly how the hell am I supposed to get into that gun flight and scratch those marines eyes out??! And then, I thought for a moment. If its this hard for ME to try and get a kill as an alien no wonder the A.I. is having problems. You’re right. The modern gamer has the visual acuity of a Terminator. But surely Gearbox wouldn’t create the aliens and make them completely useless to use. So I didn’t give up of them. I kept playing. Leveling up my alien one gloriously earned kill at a time until I realized I was becoming quite the proficient killing machine. And it felt GREAT! I found myself smiling and not at all angry. There is something very fresh in these Verses modes. This is something I think people missed because they threw in the towel too soon. Perhaps, with future modes like ‘bug hunt’ or something yet unannounced Gearbox may play with more survivor aspects like you mentioned, limited ammo, weapons, lives etc. I personally wouldn’t mind actually driving an APC and flying a dropship with my squad aboard. Even for a little while.

Sincerely, my intention is not to criticise the Gearbox game – plenty of people have already done that, and there’s already a review of it on this site. I imagine it will be patched somewhat, and there will be a reappraisal by some parties in a few months.

I’m more interested in the structure of the Aliens franchise, and how it makes it difficult to make a game that recreates that experience while still being recognizably a modern game (and one which follows the grammar of a successful game enough to make it a credible thing to publish).

I realize that there is a lot of anger towards Gearbox at the moment regarding the game, but, honestly, I feel a degree of sympathy for the team (as I did during the “Girlfriend Mode” brouhaha – where a particular development culture, a drama-hungry media and some iffy spin management created a wholly avoidable problem, albeit one with some interesting elements). It’s really hard to make an Aliens game, and almost impossible to make one that will satisfy all parties. I mean, Carol’s review said that seeing Lance Henriksson as Bishop again was worth the price of entry for her, IIRC – it was a satisfying reconnection with the Aliens franchise. Whereas you initially felt that the pull-up bar’s absence was a verisimillitude dealbreaker. Different people are coming in from very different places, and trying to satisfy that – like trying to make the Aliens true to the idea of “Aliens” without making a game that is only fun for masochists – is really, really difficult. When I think of this game, I also think of Duke Nukem Forever – not to compare them in quality terms, so much as to say that these games are not just delayed and moved between studios because of random chance, although bad luck is a factor. It’s because they are _hard_. DNF suffered from real problems in its development as trends in the FPS changed around it, and from losses of faith by the publisher (again, not wholly unreasonably).

Also, you make a very good point about the multiplayer – which is generally being seen as the high point of the experience. One of the things about multiplayer, and specifically versus multiplayer, is that you don’t need the same type of balance to create fun, because the interactions of the players are, in themselves, fun. There’s a great article by my friend Tom Armitage about a round of Left 4 Dead when, playing Dead Air, he was nearly wiped out as a result of one stupid decision made about 5 yards from the safe house, at the end of which all four players were hysterical with laughter and having the best time in the game. Which he describes in terms of the difference between Hudson and Hicks, in a way I would take some issue with but is thematically appropriate.

In solo Left 4 Dead, the AI is intended to help the player to progress (either through the level or by improving their skills and understanding of the level) while experiencing an appropriate sense of peril and challenge. In versus, it’s OK for the tank to be able to wipe out the whole team with one lucky car-swipe, because it’s _funny_ – and because another time a punch might knock the hunter off a pounced player, who them gets up, kills the tank and revives his team-mates.

Emergent gameplay, along with Hell and Soylent Green, is other people. In versus multiplayer, you can set the game up for the Aliens to be not just dangerous but _mean_ – because people respond to people being mean differently than they respond to AI being mean. One reads as fun, the other as cheating.